University of Twente Student Theses

Dynamic sharing of service capacity in a network

In this report we study networks of queues in which the operators of the queues are allowed to share service capacity dynamically. We focus on the question whether it is beneficial for the individual operators to cooperate. One small extension of a Jackson network is considered where capacity can only be shared if there is a single customer in the entire network. Another extension is investigated where capacity is shared proportionally to the numbers of customers at each queue. For these networks corresponding cost games are formulated with the operators of the queues as players. The expected queue length and the server utilization are used to measure the performance of the network and to define the cost functions. For the first extension we focus on tandem networks where the service capacities of all queues are equal. We see that the value of this capacity determines whether it is beneficial to cooperate. For the second extension we focus on tandem networks where coalitions can only be formed by consecutive queues starting backwards from the queue at the end of the tandem. We find out that it is beneficial for all queues of the tandem to participate in the grand coalition.